Not only is the universe stranger than we think. It is stranger than we can think." So argued Niels Bohr, one of the founders of quantum theory. We imagine that our theories uncover how things are but, from quantum entanglement to wave-particle duality, from black holes to dark matter, at fundamental levels the closer we get to what we imagine to be reality the stranger and more incomprehensible it appears to become.
Might science, philosophy and human thought one day stretch to meet the universe's strangeness? Or is the universe not so strange after all, for if we can catch sight of the strangeness of the universe must we not already have some access to our ultimate circumstances? Or should we give up the idea that we can uncover the essential character of the world, and with Bohr conclude that the strangeness of the universe and the quantum world transcend the limits of the human mind?